Aave Founder Stani Kulechov Rejects Kraken Stake Report Says AAVE Will Not Sell at 70% Discount

Aave founder Stani Kulechov wasted no time responding to reports that Kraken parent Payward is in talks to acquire a 15% stake in the protocol at a $385 million valuation a price that would represent just 30% of AAVE’s fully diluted valuation.

“First off, there is NO WAY we’d sell AAVE at a 70% discount lol,” Kulechov posted on X Thursday.

The pushback came after reports cited unnamed sources claiming a deal was being discussed involving 35,000 ETH in exchange for 250,000 AAVE tokens and a 15% equity stake in Aave Group.

What Kulechov Actually Said — and Did Not Say

Kulechov did not flatly deny that Aave Labs could sell some of its accumulated AAVE token allocation. He acknowledged that “multiple market participants have discussed purchasing” tokens from Aave Labs, either directly or through longer-term partnerships. What he disputed was the framing of the original report.

He also pointed to Aave’s current financial position $134 million in annualized revenue, all of which is now directed to the Aave DAO following the passage of his “Aave Will Win” proposal in April 2026 with about 75% community support. That proposal redirected 100% of protocol and product revenue away from Aave Labs to DAO token holders in exchange for multi-year funding for Labs.

“No protocol or product revenue goes to Aave Labs,” Kulechov said. “Everyone at Aave Labs and Aave DAO works for AAVE.”

Aave Has Had a Rough Few Months

The Kraken deal rumors come at a challenging time for Aave. Following the KelpDAO bridge exploit in April where attackers used Aave to convert stolen tokens into real assets without directly hacking Aave’s own contracts total value locked on the platform dropped sharply. Key contributors including ACI, Chaos Labs and BGD Labs also left the ecosystem last year amid governance tensions before the AWW proposal helped stabilise things.

Kulechov also teased what is coming next an Aavenomics 3.0 update that includes a new automated buyback mechanism for the AAVE token. No details yet but the announcement is coming.